Cascade Failure

I picked up Cascade Failure after seeing it compared to Firefly favorably in a few different places, and I am unabashedly a fan of the cult-hit TV show, even if I was rather late getting on the bandwagon. We’ve seen misfit underdog spacheship crews a million times before, but I enjoy books that tread familiar ground just as much as I enjoy those which innovate in the genre. While this book wasn’t particularly original, it does evoke the feeling of Firefly much better than anything I’ve read before.

Elevator Pitch:
 The Ambit is a spaceship captained by an AI with only two other crew members: a war-torn veteran seeking escape and an augmented mechanic who likes her plasma torch a bit too much. Then Jal stumbles into their ship, on the run from his past as a deserter. On their way back to the central system, the ship gets pinged with an emergency beacon, and everything quickly falls apart. Expect to spend more time exploring crew relationships than the action, as family life on the ship takes center stage until the final parts of the book.

What Worked for Me
This book does found family exceptionally well. I really appreciated the character dynamics that existed between the existing three crew members and how the new additions were slowly welcomed into the family. The slower pace of the book was something that I really enjoyed, and it’s the type of story I’d have been happy to stretch out a little further interspersed with other reads as I felt the need. It’s just a book that feels optimistic at its core about the human experience, our ability to trust and believe in each other, and our ability to make a difference in the world. The Ambit is filled with knitting projects, and Sagas really succeeded in making a spaceship feel like home, instead of just a transport vessel.

In particular, I loved the AI captain. Eoan had a wonderful narrative voice. There wasn’t anything experimental in their narration, and you shouldn’t expect some profound insights into AI characters in this book. But their perspective as a self-identified outsider was one that I think was the most nuanced of any in the crew. There was a really emotional internal monologue that got me crying near the end o the book. Definitely the crew member who stole the show for me, but I can see how different readers will likely resonate with different characters. The author did a great job of finding balance in the crew.

What Didn’t Work for Me
My biggest complaint is how spectacularly mis-marketed this book is. All the blurbs and quotes make you think the story is going to have the pace of Red Rising, when in reality it couldn’t be further from the relentless onslaught of twists and epic moments found there. I quickly accepted this book wasn’t going to be ‘high octane’ by any means, and it was better for it. The book enjoys spending time in crew cabins, exploring deep emotions, and playing out tangled conversations on long walks through hallways filled with dead bodies. There is tension and epic moments, but they don’t come often enough for me to call this book fast paced. It isn’t quite cozy, and isn’t quite slice of life, but it definitely isn’t as action packed as the marketing makes it out to be.

My other – perhaps more substantial – issue is that I found the worldbuilding to be lackluster. There are three powers that be in the universe. The Trust (evil corporations), The Union (workers rights orgs), and The Guild (peacekeepers who protect life). It’s all a bit too simplistic and cliche for me. And I didn’t mind it as much at first when the focus was on crew relationships, but the final act dove into this a bit more (and it looks like the sequel even moreso) and I can’t help but feel like the worldbuilding was stretching its own limits with its simplicity. To be fair, this is acknowledged and called out a bit in the narrative, but its still something that made the more traditional sci-fi elements less strong than the cozy/upbeat thematic exploration parts of the book.

In Conclusion: A wonderful little book about the relations of the crew of a spaceship with a side-plot of saving the world.

• Characters – 4
• Worldbuilding – 2
• Craft – 3
• Themes – 3
• Enjoyment – 4